1. Technical Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to data communications and wireless smart devices. More particularly, the subject matter described herein relates to methods and systems for communicating digital greeting messages and informational content using a near field communication (NFC) devices.
2. Description of Related Art
The traditional way of relaying greetings messages, events and product informational content has been paper based, in particular greeting cards that accompany a gift, invitation cards that need RSVP, and the literature that accompanies retail products.
For the instance of greeting cards, there are other methods that could be used when the greeting is not delivered along with the gift, one can easily relay the message via email, voicemail, text message, video or audio call using popular technologies like Face time, text messaging, Skype etc. Most of the aforementioned are supported by the majority of the Smart Phones. However, there is a lack of personalization when the need is to deliver the greeting message in hand, typically all instances where a greeting cards and post cards are used. The greeting cards and post cards have limited space to elaborately relay the greeting and also the format restricts on adding a personal touch. Typically people purchase greeting cards that have prewritten verbiage, and then add recipient's name and sign. It's obvious the creativity of the message is limited with the greeting card versus having the ability to personalize audio or video greeting message accessible on the Smart Phone by recipient. Furthermore, the electronic greetings can be saved, shared and referenced much easier than paper based. Another advantage would be to reduce the environmental impact by conserving paper use.
The above applies to event announcements and invitation cards, for example there is limited access to the parents contact information when inviting kids to a birthday party, paper based card are generally delivered to school and parents RSVP by calling or returning the card. Similar challenges exist in personalization of the announcement and getting RVSP in an efficient manner.
Another area consumers can benefit is by having paperless access to information related to the retail and manufacturing industry. NFC posters have recently been introduced in the market, they are generally used for advertising. There is no mechanism to instantly get presale and post sale information about products on shelves in retail stores. The information available related to the products lacks the following; Product information such as specifications, manuals, sales literature, discount codes/rebate offerings, reviews, ratings, warrantees, product registration, assembly, recommended configuration or usage instructions are not available to the consumer while shopping in the store or post sales. Most information is collected by consumer from the packaging which limits the content. If a consumer chooses to search on the internet with a Smart Phone, that information is not cataloged for easy access and requires complex search efforts to find relevant information quickly. The manufacturer of the product could carry many lines of product so it is difficult to filter thru their site. The desired language may not be supported for foreign manufacturer and some content may not published on their website or they may have not assembled such information internally but may be contributed by community e.g. video recorded instruction to install a car part or video how to use a tool. Product manuals, warranty literature, and assembly instructions for most products are distributed paper based and there is rarely an instructional video distributed along e.g. home furniture assembly instructions.
Many retail stores carry a variety of brands for which they are not the original equipment manufacturers, and thus unable to offer additional information if not provided on the packaging or accompanying literature. Some manufacturers do not publish lot of this relevant information electronically because the method for potential purchaser to consume this information is unknown to them. For the companies that manufacture few lines of products, it can be expensive for them to create and manage their own website.
If one extends the concept of products to imply museum artifacts and Zoo animals, the same issues affect the industry in sharing information content efficiently with the patron. Poster or display space is limited on site, so organizations are restricted in the ability to publish elaborate content about artifacts or animals related to providing detailed descriptions, pictures, videos and facts.
There is limited method or system that provides direct access from Smart Phone to product related material for the consumer in presale or post sale period for content mentioned earlier. Similarly, museums and Zoos, lack the method or system to relay elaborate content to a Smart Phone patron visiting.
Mobile communication devices continue to grow in popularity and in features capability. Smart Phones in particular have become an integral part of both personal and business communications. These multi-function devices incorporate PDA features, media players, wireless email capability, and internet browsers which access the internet via a cellular network and/or a wireless local area network (WLAN).
Some mobile devices incorporate contactless card technology and/or near field communication (NFC) chips. NFC technology is commonly used for contactless short-range communications based on radio frequency identification (RFID) standards, using magnetic field induction to enable communication between electronic devices, including mobile wireless communications devices. This short-range high frequency wireless communications technology exchanges data between devices over a short distance, such as only a few centimeters.
The nature of this kind of RFID communication is ‘tap’ based where an RFID target device is held for a relatively short time in the RFID reader device's interrogation field. The ‘tap’ paradigm is based on user experience analysis where a ‘tap’ action measured in time should be equal to or less than 0.5 seconds. Thus, NFC RFID is only suitable for exchanging small data items where a transfer can be completed in a reasonably short time interval (less than 0.5 seconds). For larger data items it is preferred to utilize alternative transport mechanisms available in the portable device (e.g. mobile telephone or terminal device) such as WLAN or Bluetooth technology. In many cases, RFID can be seen as a user input enhancement where instead of requesting user guidance to manually create a connection between devices, RFID communication is used to exchange communication details by just tapping another NFC enabled device.
NFC devices are unique in that they support three modes of operation: reader/writer, peer-to-peer, and card emulation. The different operating modes are based on the ISO/IEC 18092 NFC IP-1 and ISO/IEC 14443 contactless smart card standards. In reader/writer mode, the NFC device is capable of reading NFC Forum-mandated tag types, such as a tag embedded in an NFC smart poster, sticker or tag. The reader/writer mode on the RF interface is compliant with the ISO 14443 and FeliCa schemes. In Peer-to-Peer mode, two NFC devices can exchange data. For example, you can share Bluetooth or WiFi link set-up parameters or you can exchange data such as virtual business cards or digital photos. Peer-to-Peer mode is standardized on the ISO/IEC 18092 standard. In Card Emulation mode, the NFC device appears to an external reader much the same as a traditional contactless smart card. This enables contactless payments and ticketing by NFC devices without changing the existing infrastructure.
For background information on the present invention the reader is referred to a white paper entitled “Near Field Communication” published by ECMA International under document number ECMA/TC32-TG19/2005/012. That document shows near field communication equipped devices brought into close proximity in order to exchange parameters necessary for setting up a communication with more bandwidth using a secondary communication technology, other than NFC, such as Wireless LAN (WLAN) or Bluetooth.
Other References
“Near Field Communication,” White paper ECMA International (internet document) http://www.ecma-international.org/activities/Communications/tc32-tg19-2005-012.pdf, pp. 1-72. cited by other.